Various artists: Asili ya Mama review – Tanzanian field recordings tell women’s stories with an energetic trill

Folk song collecting by women has an illustrious history, but also an exciting present, as this set of 10 energetic Tanzanian field recordings demonstrates. Put together by documentarian Ruth Ndeto and musician Msafiri Zawose (brother of Pendo from the brilliant Zawose Queens, and son of the late folk pioneer Hukwe), Asili ya Mama (Origin of Mother) showcases the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic invention of Wagogo, Waluguru and Wasambaa women. Here are songs that have “carried culture and music in everyday life”, say the liner notes, while rarely being heard beyond their communities.

The artwork for Asili ya Mama

Almost in counterpoint to the croak of passing birds, a brisk female singer kicks off the album opener, Baba Mwenda, a storytelling song warning against greed. Other women join her in unison, as do traditional shakers and tin drums, with a bubbling, playful defiance. Wedding song Chamsola comes next, driven by the resonant ring of a mheme drum and harmonies full of shimmering opacity, like a midnight-blue sea, then Chamwiloa, a fast-paced song about the formal union of families after marriage, which races towards its conclusion with percussive intensity.

The call-and-response singing recorded in courtyards, homes and open village spaces is infectious, as are the trilling vocal solos and blasts on the ngangafirimbi flute, which serve as sparky punctuation. The songs’ themes are also expressed powerfully through their performance. In Kuku Mnywa Maji, a song about love and companionship, voices and instruments are woven together in tight repetitions, while in Mlembwe, a song about understanding others’ life experiences, deeper-pitched layers of harmony are built up like foundational stones. In this and the shaker-filled final track, Sunyunize, we also hear women leading men, expressions now recorded, archived, and shared widely, extending their beautiful power.

Also out this month

The ghost of Bert Jansch floats majestically through Sam Grassie’s debut album, Where Two Hawks Fly (Broadside Hacks). It isn’t pastiche, but Jansch’s authority echoes in Grassie’s gutsy delivery of songs such as Burning of Auchindoun and his intricately arranged guitars. The woodwind in Orchy Falls and Kishor’s also sounds spellbinding. Jim Moray celebrates 25 years in the trad folk business by dressing up as a Whittlesea straw bear holding an electric guitar on his eighth album, Gallants (Managed Decline). His bold, bright voice is particularly effective on the Shetland song When I Was a Little Boy, driven by moody sub-bass and drums, and the Wilco-like swagger of American Stranger. Scottish clàrsach player and folk singer Anna McLuckie’s The Little Winters (Hudson Records) also offers 10 bracing bolts of frosty light. Particularly spiky and sublime are New Northern Lullaby, a McLuckie original, and The Dark Island, a nice twist on a composition by Scottish traditional musician Iain McLachlan.